Central Park to Host Chanel Contemporary Art Container by Zaha Hadid

The London architect Zaha Hadid designed the Mobile Art pavilion, which has already made a stop in Tokyo. The structure is made of lightweight panels that are packed in 51 shippable containers. Image and caption lifted directly from the NYTIMES.

If Chanel wants to back a Zaha Hadid portable art container placed in Central Park’s Rumsey Playfield (October 20 to November 9th) that’s fine by me, but asking the participating artists to create a Chanel inspired art work is paid advertising, and shouldn’t be presented as anything more than that. What’s more, there isn’t a straight wall in the building, which means the pavilion is another architectural space “designed for art”, without a thought about what creates an optimal art viewing space.

Art Mobile looks like a spaceship so I suppose the structure itself will be a bit of a tourist draw, but I can’t imagine this container is going to attract the level of attention Christo and Jean-Claude’s gates or Olafur Eliasson’s Waterfalls have, so the thought that it will generate all kinds of additional cash for the city seems wishful at best. Also, if there was any thought that Chanel might actually be about promoting art, I’ll note that the press release I received yesterday includes three tiny pictures of artist work at near the end of a six page document, preceded by countless shots of the mobile unit, and a large picture of Hadid and Lagerfeld.